October 15, 2014

French-Isms: 1st Edition

You’ve probably heard a French person say words like “hambourger” or “très cool” and laughed a little bit at the funny-sounding accent on your English words. Well, these aren’t just English words to the French – they’re anglicismes (anglicisms)!

An anglicism is a word that the French borrow from English and use instead of their native French word (usually with a strong French accent). Despite some strong finger shaking from the French government against this, the French use anglicisms regularly.

As an English-speaking American, I think it’s high time we started returning the favor and filling our English with a few French-Isms (plus, I already do it)!

Here are some of my faves:

Mange-ing (mahnJ-ing) – this is how I say “eating” 90% of the time. “I’m mange-ing on cheese, going to go mange at Bistro Vendome tonight, want to meat up for a quick mange?”

Manger (mahn-JHAY) is the French verb for “to eat” so I plop it into my English by adding English prefixes and suffixes. It’s so natural now that even my 100% anglophone friends have picked it up.

You may have even heard this word before as many French bistros or café’s like to use the word. American eateries are sometimes called things like Annie’s Café or Pete’s Diner. French places will be called Chez Jacques or Chez Bernard for the same reason.

In any case, these phrases are fun to use in English because they come up a lot. “Want to get dinner chez toi?” or better yet… “want to mange chez toi?”

Bisous (bee-ZOO) – If you’ve watched the Mad Men episode where Megan sings “Zou Bisou Bisou” to Don, this word is for you. It literally means “kisses” in French, but French people throw it around as a “goodbye” as well. Think of it as the French version of “xoxo.”

In lieu of – this is a quick replacement for “instead” and already gets used pretty often in English. I just like to use as much French as I can, so it replaces “instead” in much of my dialogue.

When I started to try learning English seriously by reading novels and checking every single word I didn’t know in the dictionnary, to try & look smart (I was using words like “vituperate” out loud before some kind souls told me that was only written language), I discovered that many English words that passed into French casual language actually come from ancient French words we completely forgot the existence. Ironically.

For instance: challenge. I used to get all language nazi when I heard a French saying “tchallèèèèndje” instead of “défi”. Challenge actually comes from an old French word : “chalonge”.

Not to be mean, but I find the use of the word PUTAIN in your Uncle Sam image to be offensive. How would you like a French person saying FUCK when teaching (erroneous information to) other French people about the US?